hail repair

*** IMPORTANT NOTICE *** This update includes major changes to our back-end system. In order to avoid any weirdness or issues with your existing data, please update immediately.

The PDR Mobile team has been burning the midnight oil to bring some exciting new features to our members. Our Project feature allows for multiple site management capabilities with the ability to invite any technician to a project. We can scale 1000’s, no project is too big. We also have included the ability to create your own Custom Matrix.

Along with the Project features & Custom Matrix features, there are a number of other cool enhancements the team has created as well. At the end of the day, it’s all about Keeping You Pushin’.

Check out what’s new:

Project creation: This is for both hail techs and route techs. It’s an easy way to organize work flow during cat-hail events, and route techs can organize their wholesale customers as well. Collaboration is super-easy. We have several tutorials on this feature, as well as, for all our features. Project viewing rights are customizable to ‘My jobs’ and ‘All jobs’.You can add existing PDR mobile members for free. All work done within the project belongs to the project owner. No extra work required, and all invoicing is seamless on the back end.

Compare Repair vs. Replace: This feature provides the ability to quickly verify that the PDR repair is the most cost effective repair option. We allow the ability to document OEM, Aftermarket, or Recycled parts comparison along with blend or no blend when comparing to a conventional repair. We allow for the data to be added as an estimate note or an internal file note as well. Check out the video.

Add Members: You can add members to your account at a huge discount ($15.00 per month). The added member will only be able to work for the account owner, as all their work will be branded with the account owner’s information. Anyone can become an account owner and collaborate with others for free.

Free Account Admin: We allow for unlimited admin accounts for back office support. There is no charge unless you want them to have access to the app. Then it’s a small up-charge of $15.00 per month.

Signature Capture: Get an authorized signature for an estimate and a quote. The signature auto populates when you create an invoice – no extra work required.

Tax Calculations: Tax calculations are calculated after any discounts. We have included a labor tax toggle for those states that require labor to be taxed.

The above features make up the bulk of the new release, however, we have also tweaked many little things to enhance the overall user experience. Here are a few of those small tweaks that you will notice: Color enhancements in the estimate panel layout, pop up notices are easier to understand, view your logo before save, some button and icon updates for a cleaner look, and as always, all the changes are across all platforms and devices.

Please note:
Some of these changes may require you to logout and log back into the app to take effect.

My wife and I have been watching the Olympics and the thing that strikes me is the dedication athletes from around the world give to “Going for the Gold”.As a businessperson, you also need to be dedicated to “Going for the Gold”, your gold medal is the long-term wealth you will have created at the end of the race.

I think at the core there are two characteristics that define the difference between the Olympian and the wanna-be-olympian; 1) willingness to seek, to listen to, and to use critical feedback and 2) persistence in practicing the skill sets based on the critical feedback until they have it mastered.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions of critical is “inclined to criticize severely and unfavorably” and another is “exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation <critical thinking>”So for me, critical feedback is data you receive that provides you with the opportunity to make careful judgment and a judicious evaluation of your performance of a skill or skill set, which you can choose to use to determine if you need to modify your performance in order to achieve your goal. To consistently improve the Olympian accepts the need to get unfavorable criticism and to be able to move past the “bad feelings” they get when they hear it and make the necessary changes to fix what needs to be fixed.The wanna-be-olympian basically does not want to hear critical feedback, because they choose not to move past those “bad feelings”.In effect they delude themselves into thinking they are performing the skill or skill set at the competitive level and do not need to make any changes.

Michael Phelps, Gabby Douglas, and all of the rest of the Olympians have spent thousands of hours watching replays of their performances to see how they needed to change to be better, watching their competitors’ performances and thousands of more hours listening to their coaches tell them what they are doing wrong and how to change to do it better, and then spending hour upon hour of practicing that skill set incorporating those changes identified in the critical feedback in order to achieve perfection.This is what it takes to “Go For the Gold”.

Just like athletes, business people are usually dedicated, focused, and determined to achieve their goals, the question is a particular athlete an Olympian or a wanna-be-olympian?The same question holds for you as a businessperson, are you an Olympian or a wanna-be-olympian?If you are going for the gold, creation of long-term wealth, like the Olympian you need to have a strong;1) willingness to seek, to listen to, and to use critical feedback and 2) persistence in practicing the skill sets based on the critical feedback until they have it mastered.

For those of you who truly seek to “Go For the Gold”, and I hope you all do, the first thing you have to do is to stop deluding yourself that you are doing your best at the skills of being a businessperson, none of us are. But here is what you can start doing to strive to really perfect your businessperson skill set:

Step 1: Identify what you perceive is your strongest businessperson skill, Step 2: Video tape yourself performing that skill, Step 3: Watch the video 3 times, the first time just watch it, the second time identify what you could have done better, and the third time, when the video comes to one of those micro-skills that you need to “fix” stop the video and figure out why you chose to do what you did rather what you have been a better way to perform that micro-skill.

Then practice-feedback, practice-feedback, practice-feedback until you have the skill set down cold.

It is not only FBI profilers that read people – you have to read people in order to figure out how to get from them what you want and the better you are at it, the more likely will you be able to achieve your business goals. As a businessperson you have to read, customers, employees, potential employees, vendors, lenders, investors, etc. in order for you to figure out how to get them to choose behaviors consistent with achieving your business goals. So what is the secret to reading people?

We form an opinion about people we meet in the first 3 or 4 seconds of interaction with them, much, if not all, of this initial reading of a person is based on their physical presentation and body language, the rest on the first words out of their mouths. In this time period we are assessing the person in terms of 1) threat level, 2) power hierarchy, 3) compatibility factor, and 4) malleability factor. After we have the first impression we then, albeit mostly unconsciously, decide on how we will go about getting this person to choose behaviors that are consistent with our achieving our desires.

But do not forget and you should always be aware of is the fact that the person you are reading is also reading you and for the same reason, to figure out how they can get you to choose behaviors consistent with achieving their desires.

The other thing to remember is that we humans are complex critters; we do not just have one story, in fact we are like a section in the library with multiple books (stories) to be read. The section of library is determined by our core identity which provides a template for every role we use in our lives. The specific book you will be reading is determined by the role the person you are reading is enacting at that time. A role, in this context, is like a set of policies and procedures that a person has developed to guide their behavioral and attitudes choices in a specific area of their life. When you read a person you will need to do so based on the role they are using for a particular situation. Think about all of the roles you have, which may include being a spouse, a parent, a friend, a businessperson, manager, a customer and so on, for each of these you will have a set of policies and procedures unique to you, but to some degree shared by society in general. And, for each role your story to be read has a different genre. Therefore to be accurate in your reading of person, means knowing the section of library and which book from that person’s library section (role) you are reading.

In the spirit of our commitment to be a super value added partner, we are committed to FREE updates for all plan level feature releases. That is a promise. Not to mention, we will never the raise the price of any of our subscription plans. With that said, below is a list of our most recent Pro Level app update:

Full-vehicle price estimating: Super-fast way to write single price estimate

In Part 1 of Growing Your PDR Business I used the metaphor of growing plants and what happens if you do not nourish them. To continue with that metaphor; let’s say you plant one kernel of seed corn, you feed and water that one stalk of corn, what do you get? Well, there is a good chance you will get a return on your investment from 1 kernel of corn that yields 972 kernels.

Out of those 972 kernels, you have to sell 955 kernels to pay for your costs of doing business (break-even), leaving you with 17 kernels of corn. As your business goal is to create long-term wealth, you understand that the costs of doing business are going to go up each year and that your machinery will have to be upgraded. As a wise businessperson you create a retained earnings account to be used only for reinvestment back into the business. As a corn grower who wants to grow the business you may put 15 kernels into your retained earnings account, 9 to be used to plant and grow 9 additional stalks next season and 6 to cover the increased expenses of adding those 9 stalks and to make a down-payment on a purchase of a more effective and efficient corn planter. The final 2 kernels go to your dividends account.

To state the obvious, the key is to increase revenues while maintaining the most appropriate level of efficiency and I would be surprised if any of you has not worried about how to increase revenues. From a businessperson’s perspective there are only 2 ways to increase revenues; 1) increase market share and/or 2) diversification. Both take significant resources and serious planning to accomplish.

There are three major issues that a businessperson must grapple with in order to effect the growth of his/her business; sacrifice, risk, and planning. None of which most of us are very good at. Sacrifice means not giving in to those short-term satisfiers, such as the new Corvette, the 5000sq.ft. house in the burbs, or the 63” flat screen TV. Those funds need to go into your retained earnings account in order to grow the business to achieve your long-term wealth creation goals. To grow your business you have to take risks and by design most humans are risk averse, especially in the area of taking financial risk. But sacrifice and willingness to take risks in and of themselves will not generate business growth, you have to have planning, note I did not say you had to have “a plan”, but you had better have charted a course based on the best evidence, the best thinking, and business intuition that you can muster (in my next blog I will discuss the concept of planning).

In “Growing Your PDR Business Is a Choice Part I” I said you have three choices, if you forgo the first two and choose to grow the business, you need to ask yourself: 1) How much am I willing to give up the short-term return for the long-term? 2) How much risk am I willing to take? and 3) Am I willing to take the time and put in the effort required to adequately plan for the growth of my business in order to achieve my long-term wealth creation goals?